Flydubai to operate some flights from DWC during airport refurbishment

Flydubai will operate flights to select destinations from Dubai World Central (DWC) for a 45-day period next year during the runway refurbishment project at Dubai International Airport (DXB).

The southern runway refurbishment project is scheduled to take place from April 16 until May 30, 2019.

The airline said it will operate flights to 39 destinations (out of flydubai’s network of 92 destinations) from DWC during the 45-day period to ensure “minimum disruption to passengers’ travel plans”.

Some of the destinations include Delhi, Istanbul, Jeddah, Kuwait, Mumbai and Riyadh.

During this period, flights to 10 of these destinations (Jeddah, Dammam, Muscat, Bahrain, Kabul, Khartoum, Kuwait, Alexandria, Amman and Beirut) will also be available from DXB.

Meanwhile flights to all other flydubai destinations will continue to operate from Dubai International.

Following the completion of the runway enhancement project on May 30, flydubai will resume operating all its flights from DXB.

Flydubai’s CEO, Ghaith Al Ghaith, said: “As we saw in 2014, runway enhancement programmes continue to support the long term vision for aviation in the UAE. With flydubai flights operating to select destinations from DWC, we aim to not only support this vision but to provide our passengers with as much choice as possible to travel across our network with minimum disruption.”

The 45-day runway closure next year is expected to reduce capacity by up to 43 per cent and could also see Emirates operate some flights from Dubai World Central, it was earlier reported.

Air Transport World cited Emirates president Sir Tim Clark as saying Emirates and Flydubai “will take the biggest hit” in terms of operations because they are the airport’s main carriers.

Read more: Dubai International Airport traffic expected to reduce 43% during runway closure

A similar programme was undertaken on the airport’s northern runway for an 80-day period in 2014.

Passenger Traffic declined 2.5 per cent during May 2014, the first month of the closure, and Emirates was forced to ground about 25 per cent of its fleet, losing $467m in revenue, according to its financial statements.

Read: Emirates To Recover Dhs1bn Loss From Runway Closure Within The Year – Chairman